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The Mentor: An Academic Advising Journal The Ignored Population: Transfer Students Ryan D. Withem, Franklin College of Indiana
One overarching question that all academic advising units ask themselves, or at least should be asking, is, “How do we best serve the individual students at our institution on a daily basis?” One thing that academic advising as a whole has deemed appropriate in answering this question is realizing the differences between students and formulating ways to best serve these differences. Pick up any book, journal article, or other writing on academic advising and you will likely find a section on or mention of advising diverse student populations and how to handle each population's needs. For example, the Center for Advising and Student Achievement (2006) at Colorado State University lists an entire page of tips for working with students from diverse cultures. The University Advising Center (2006) at Wayne State University also includes a page entitled “Dealing with a Diverse Student Body” on its advising center Web page. Most advising centers' Web pages or training manuals include something like this in their mission statements. As we can see, realizing the differences in students and finding ways to best serve them is a very important step in finding how to most effectively advise our students. One group of students that I feel has been ignored in discussions of diverse populations is transfer students. According to Troy Holaday, chair of the Advising Transfer Students Commission for the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA), “. . . transfer students are one of the most commonly encountered yet frequently overlooked sources of diversity” (Holaday, 2005). Tom Grites, co-editor of the NACADA monograph Advising Transfer Students: Issues and Strategies, agrees: “In reviewing the literature there seems to be an overgeneralization about transfer students (Grites, 2004).” While transfer students as a whole are recognized as a subdivision of our incredibly diverse student population, the diversity within transfer students as a group has been ignored. According to Steele and McDonald (2000), “Transfer students are a very diverse group with many different needs.” Transfer students can fall into almost any category of diversity that we may discuss in academic advising and therefore are themselves one of the most diverse groups we may encounter. They may be ethnically diverse, have age differences, be first-generation students, and most definitely have a wide variety of reasons for becoming members of this group known as transfer students. One way for advisers to better serve these students is to learn more about one part of their diversity: the reason they transfer. Reasons for transferring can run the gamut from wanting to major in something their previous institution did not offer to something as simple as wanting to be closer to parents or a significant other. Recognizing these reasons for transferring and exploring them in depth with a student in an advising session are keys to having a quality advising session with a transfer student. One reason students may transfer is simply because they want to be closer to home. Some of these students will be truly motivated—knowing exactly what they want to study—and even though they may be only a few miles from where they lived while in high school, they will take advantage of all the institution has to offer and participate in the whole college experience. This type of student is most likely in the minority of the group, however. Most students who transfer “back home” will go back to what they know—high school friends (who may or may not be in college), the same part-time job they had in high school—it will really be a repeat of high school for them. When advising this type of student, we must push them towards getting involved and finding that area of study that is going to keep them on campus, expand their horizons, and help them to have the full college experience. The student who returns home and falls into the same routines they went through in high school may think that a legitimate reason for majoring in something or taking a course is that their high school friends are taking the same major or course. As advisers, we must push their thinking beyond this and help them explore their own wants, needs, and interests. Some students, on the other hand, may transfer for just the opposite reason—to get away from home. One thing to be aware of when advising these students is that while they may think they were ready to move away and sever all ties with home, it is likely that, at some point in the semester, they will feel at least a bit of homesickness. Considering this, we must advise them to become involved and take advantage of all that the campus has to offer them, not only so they will get the most out of their college experience, but also so they will have a bond with campus, and the campus will become a home away from home for them. Another reason some students transfer is that the institution at which they started may not have the program or major that they are interested in. These students will typically be very single-minded as far as academics are concerned when they arrive at the new institution. While the specific major or program they transferred for is obviously very important to them, it is important to advise them to explore other areas as well. We must advise these students to take full advantage of any exploratory course opportunities they may have or any space in their schedule to take courses outside their intended major to broaden their horizons. While they may actually end up majoring in what they intended to when they transferred, get a good job in that field, and go on to great things in that field, there is a chance they might not, so advising them to explore areas outside their intended major will give them something to turn to if they change their mind, are not successful in their major, or encounter any other reasons that may keep them from completing the program they intended to upon transferring. Another reason students may transfer is institution size. Some students may think that they are ready for a big-school atmosphere when starting college and, after their first semester of classes with 300 or more students and a lack of contact with their professors, they change their mind. These students come to us looking for a smaller atmosphere where they can get more individualized attention. One thing to be aware of when advising these students is that they will have more opportunities to get involved at a smaller institution, and they will often take advantage of these opportunities. After holding presidencies of five different clubs and being active in seventeen different organizations, they may realize that they got in over their heads. Advising these students to get involved but not to stretch themselves to thin will be key to their success at the new institution. The opposite side of this situation is that some students think they will want small classes and a small college atmosphere, but after a semester or so find themselves bored or unhappy with their choice. They will transfer to an institution with larger classes and more to offer in campus size and activities. When advising these students, we must keep in mind where they came from. Maybe weaning them from the small classes, in a sense, is the best approach, so advise them to take some classes that will obviously be larger than those at their previous institution, but do not throw them into the three-hundred-student lecture hall setting quite yet. Also, making sure that these students get involved in something outside of class and do not fall through the cracks will be integral to their success. Going hand in hand with their choice of institution size, some students may have thought that they were ready to give up their athletic endeavors when they embarked upon their college journey, but now that they have experienced their first semester or year without their sport, they realize they really miss it. They may have originally chosen an institution where their sport is not even an option or where the talent level is too great for them to have the opportunity to compete. In these cases, they may transfer to an institution that offers them the chance to compete in the sport they loved in high school. One thing to be aware of with these students is that while they were successful with their first college experience, they did so without their sport being in the mix. If they have transferred to another institution to play a sport, it may be advisable for them to take a lighter course load during their peak season so that they can learn to balance both sports and classes. With these students, time management will be critical if they are to be successful while they practice, play, read, write, and study, all at the same time. Some students transfer for social reasons: they did not get along with their former roommates; they had no friends at their old school; their high school friends go to their new school; or their significant other is at their new school. Whatever the reason, the key with this type of student is to go beyond the social reasons for which they transferred and to focus on what is ahead of them: (1) they are at a new institution, with new procedures and ways of getting things done, and whether they have many friends or none at all, they are going to have to figure out how to get things done at the new institution; (2) they are at college to get a good education and to grow as a person, and while friends can definitely help with this, friends cannot be the main focus of the college experience. These are conversations that may be difficult to have, but when advising these students, we need to make sure we get to the difficult issues. There is no tried and true way that will result in 100 percent success all the time in relation to advising transfer students. With all students we advise, but especially with transfer students, we must have a conversation to find out where they have been, why they are here, where they are going, and how they plan to reach their goals. By doing this, we will be able to find out what is at the heart of the transfer student and be able to tailor our advice to their specific situation. By recognizing the differences between transfer students and not just assuming we know them because they all are transfer students, we will serve them much better. Only by treating each student as an individual and finding out their individual differences and individual needs will we truly be able to best serve each student we come in contact with. References Center for Advising and Student Achievement. (2006). Working with students from diverse cultures. Colorado State University. Retrieved November 1, 2006, from http://www.casa.colostate.edu/advising/Faculty_Advising_Manual/Chapter2/ Grites, T. (2004, September). Advising transfer students. Academic Advising Today, 27(3). Retrieved December 11, 2006, from http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/AAT/NW27_3.htm#16 Holaday, T. (2005, February). Diversity in transfer. Academic Advising Today, 28(1). Retrieved December 11, 2006, from http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/AAT/NW28_1.htm#5 Steele, G. E., & McDonald, M. L. (2006). Advising students in transition. In V. N. Gordon & W. R. Habley (Eds.), Academic advising: A comprehensive handbook (pp.144–161). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. University Advising Center. (2006). Dealing with a diverse student body. Wayne State University. Retrieved November 1, 2006, from http://www.advising.wayne.edu/manual/diverse.php About the AuthorRyan D. Withem is an admissions counselor and coordinator of transfer student recruitment at Franklin College of Indiana. He can be reached at rwithem@franklincollege.edu or 317-738-8174. Published in The Mentor on April 4, 2007, by Penn State's Division of Undergraduate Studies Available online at www.psu.edu/dus/mentor/ Privacy and Legal Statements | Copyright | © The Pennsylvania State University | All rights reserved | |